Reviews Answering:
Guest:
This review feels more directed at the anime/manga more than me, because Konohamaru hasn't even been mentioned in the story.
vikraal:
Thanks for this review, it made me think more about things I had thought of as trivial.
Well I think this was an oversight by my part. I have come up with an explanation to your doubts that may be showed in later chapters when Naruto has delved more into sealing and starts to wander about things like that. Anyways, I have realized that I have to change some stuff involving the second chapter, more specifically about the book so it fits more to my idea about the jinchurikis.
TheInfiniteweeaboo:
I'm glad you liked my decision of going with a fuinjutsu master Naruto, and I hope I will be able to do a good job on that aspect for your sake and mine as I also enjoy greatly that type of Naruto.
Thanks for liking it and the encouraging words, and have a great day too!
xyzdoy:
Thanks, I never thought that my writing was anything more than mediocre, so this is encouraging.
Well that's all the reviews for today, all reviews are deeply appreciated.
-o-
The sound of metal grinding against stone was heard across all the apartment, being the only sound at hours so early. The boy sighed in barely noticeable relief; that was the last one that needed sharpening. As he finalized his work by removing the excess metal shavings, he remembered. He had something to do today.
"I still can't believe that idiot convinced me to help him, this is gonna be a waste of time…" Sasuke grumbled out loud.
Sasuke, as the proud Uchiha he was, respected immensely his training schedule, especially because of his ambition. But… he reluctantly admitted to himself that he had been desiring a break for a while now. He had spent the last years in a routine that was not appropriate for an Academy student, with most of his time being occupied by training.
He shook his head, he needed to be done with this favour and train extra hard when he was finished, he couldn't relax for a moment if he wanted to accomplish his ambition. Sasuke quickly prepared himself a simple bento that would last him for the day and sprinted to the place of the appointment.
When he arrived, he observed his surroundings as a good shinobi always does, and was slightly disappointed at the ordinary training ground he was in. Training Ground 9 was as ordinary as you could find, being a glade in the forests that surrounded Konoha accompanied by a small lake.
He would have offered to train in his clan's grounds if he knew it was going to be like this, but retracted that sentiment when he remembered the person he was going to train with. It would be immensely irresponsible to welcome a prankster onto his clan's spaces.
As the cries of birds entered his ears and the weak rays of the sun reached his eyes, Sasuke realized he had arrived a great tad earlier than he had planned. Mulling through these thoughts had made him enter autopilot.
'I think I will start earlier then...' Sasuke thought as he approached the lake's shore. He took a deep breath and focused.
Chakra flowing fast to his throat, he moved his hands at astounding speed, forming hand seal after hand seal in quick succession. Resting his hand on the final hand seal, he let out the small ball of chakra. Now a fearsome fireball, it crushed against the small body of water, quickly incinerating the water and leaving behind great amounts of vapor.
Minutes passed as Sasuke continued fueling the fireball until he lost the slightest bit of control and the flow shut down abruptly. The smoke produced by the backfire sent him into a coughing fit. After it stopped, Sasuke started a flow of chakra to soothe his throat as he started reprimanding himself.
'This is not enough. It's not enough if I want to avenge my clan… If I want to kill that man...' Sasuke's eyes darkened, as the image of that man tormented his mind once again. The memory of that night came to him, as vividly as if it was yesterday. The blood spilled besides his family's corpse, the tears that runned down his face as he looked in disbelief at what was happening, and the screams that desperately seeked help. A help he wasn't able to provide. Because he was not strong enough then. And he was not strong enough now after all these years.
Sasuke felt infuriated at his own weakness, maybe… maybe if he had those same eyes as him he would have the power to kill him. Maybe his brother was right, he lacked hatred. If only he fueled it and followed the same path as him, he was sure he would be able to kill him. And all it would take to get rid of that monster, all that would need to be sacrificed would be one life. One life to accomplish his goal. To rid himself of this burden. To be able to lead a normal life again. To be able to live without guilt. To be…
Thud
Sasuke sighed. He had promised he wouldn't become like him. That he wouldn't use his methods. That he was going to find a way that wouldn't hurt anyone innocent. Because he wasn't like Itachi as his father always liked to remind him. And he would never be even if he tried, because Itachi was a once in a lifetime genius that excelled at everything he tried, but he was going to crawl his way through life until he got to the same level as him. No matter how much he had to train, he was going to kill him.
'And after all, even if I wanted to follow his ways, there's no one out there I would consider my best friend. And I doubt there ever will…' Sasuke snickered at the thought. A friend…
"Oy hey you bastard! It seems you arrived earlier than planned, do you really wanna get your butt kicked so badly? A loud exuberant voice yelled across the clearing, a voice that Sasuke recognized well.
"Whatever graduate-by-accident, let's get this done quickly." Sasuke smirked as the other boy erupted in anger.
'A friend huh...'
-o-
Naruto shook his wrists as he bounced, and took the kunai that was offered to him. He bent his arm and quickly made a throwing gesture, letting go of the kunai at the last moment.
As if time slowed down, Naruto saw the kunai come closer and closer to the mark. His lips started to turn upwards. This was it! He thought as his expectant eyes followed the kunai, and realized something was wrong.
The trajectory was off, the kunai facing slightly more to the right. His face turned to one of worry as he closed his eyes and prayed and hoped it worked.
Thud
The kunai had hit, and when Naruto started to open up his eyes he was interrupted.
"You suck, a 4-year-old would have done better than that." Sasuke said as Naruto realized he had failed completely and utterly, he hadn't hit the target and much less the bullseye.
"Shut up. No one throws kunais like that, you freak!"
He grumbled exasperated as he went to retrieve his kunai from the tree. It wasn't his fault that prick had put it in such a complicated place.
"A shinobi that is only able to throw kunais at what's directly in front of him is a useless shinobi. Now come on, I don't have all day."
"Hey, I would be able to get it if you just allowed me to use shurikens. I could even get you while inside that lake," Naruto pointed to the lake that was quite a distance away from Sasuke. "And anyways, kunais don't work like that!" He exclaimed with confidence, there was no way you would be able to hit the bullseye without changing their direction mid-flight.
"You willing to bet on it?" The other boy asked him, as he started fiddling with a kunai.
"Yeah sure. I will pay for dinner if you're able to do it on your first try." Naruto grinned, as the thought of free ramen entered his mind.
"Alright." Sasuke said as he threw the kunai, and to Naruto's shock, it hit dead center. Not a centimeter off the bullseye.
"Wha-what… How?!" Naruto asked, eyes wide open, it shouldn't be possible.
"Hmm, you would be surprised what you can do with strings." He replied as he pulled at what seemed as thin air, and the kunai went flying back to his hand.
It took Naruto a couple minutes to comprehend what had happened, but when he assimilated it all he stared furious at the other boy.
"You tricked me you bastard! You never told me to use a string."
"I thought it was fairly obvious that you wouldn't be able to make it with just a kunai, but it seems I underestimated how dumb you are." Sasuke calmly said as he started thinking of what to eat that day.
"Well in any case I doubt you will be able to make that shot anytime soon, so should we move to something else?"
Naruto stood silent, shaking in anger. Why did people always underestimate him? Why did they think he was a stupid child that knows nothing? He was gonna show them, he was gonna show them all what Uzumaki Naruto was capable of!
With a hand seal, smoke appeared at his side. And a clone came out from it with a kunai in hand. Without a word, they both threw a kunai at different angles that didn't seem to be able to hit the mark. And just as his kunai was about to pass the mark, it got hit by the other kunai and changed its trajectory abruptly.
Thud
It had hit, not close to the bullseye but it had hit the mark. Naruto turned to the shocked Sasuke, and grinned.
"Was that good enough for my first try?" And Naruto laughed at the other boy's dumbfounded expression.
"I'm not the best at this, or anything really... But don't ever underestimate me!" Naruto with determined eyes, looking intently at Sasuke.
-o-
After getting over the initial shock of that idiot being able to summon real, solid clones, and being able to coordinate so well with them, he realized that the idiot was still an idiot and needed someone very patient to dumb things down for him. Any thoughts of his classmate being a hidden genius were quickly shot down when he was told that the idea had come from a comic book and had no idea where the kunai had to hit to make that trajectory change. A stupid comic book that had things as dragons summonings inside it. A godforsaken dragon.
Sasuke sighed, as the blond once again missed the bullseye by some centimeters. At least now he was able to hit the mark consistently.
While Naruto kept trying to nail the throw, he started thinking of those weird clones of him.
'They sure seem useful, I wonder why they never taught us that at the Academy? If he can do it, I'm sure everyone can. I wonder if I could…'
"Hey idiot, stop for a moment," Sasuke said as he signaled the boy to come closer. When Naruto was finally in front of him, he proceeded. "I have a deal for you."
"Huh? What kind of deal?"
"I want you to teach me that clones jutsu from you and in exchange I will… teach you a Katon jutsu." Sasuke looked at the ground, he didn't like teaching people things from his clan, but he knew that the blond would jump at the chance of learning such a 'flashy' jutsu. With any luck, the blond would give up on learning it and he would have a brand new jutsu on his arsenal.
As he expected, Naruto was immediately starting the process of teaching him. The hand seals were unsurprisingly easy, being very similar to the normal Bunshin no Jutsu with the difference of the addition of an extravagant hand seal. It made him wonder how Naruto never got it if this jutsu seemed like a more advanced form of the regular Bunshin no Jutsu. Naruto wasn't by far the best teacher he had had, saying the instructions in such a simple manner without any kind of details or explaining the theory behind it, but nonetheless he learned the essential things required to perform the jutsu.
Sasuke, having memorized the sequence of hand seals, performed it and divided his chakra by two, like slicing a cake felt. There was a puff of smoke to his side and from it came a perfect copy of himself. He grinned slightly, that had been pretty fast. Just as he was about to turn to Naruto to start teaching him, he felt it.
His body felt weaker, exhausted in a very visible manner. He stumbled as his balance was momentarily lost, and just as he was about to fall to the ground, something caught him.
"Well that's a first, that never happened to me when using it. Not even when I summoned dozens of clones." Naruto informed him as he walked him to a nearby tree to rest.
A couple minutes passed until he recovered, and started to figure out what had just happened.
'This is strange… it's as if half my chakra was used to make one clone. One. But if it took that much chakra to create it, how could Naruto summon dozens? Even if his chakra was bigger than mine I doubt he would be able to summon more than a few, so the jutsu doesn't require that exact amount of chakra… It's as… if it divided it evenly amongst the user and the clones.' Sasuke nodded to his reasoning, and started thinking of how dangerous it was if he overdid it.
'In any case I will need to get used to this feeling if I want to make this jutsu useful, and try out its limitations.' He thought as he started ordering things to his copycat.
The clone complied and was able to follow every order, it was as if any other shinobi. He prepared a kunai in his hand to dispel it, but as he approached his clone he was interrupted.
"That's not necessary y'know? A simple hit is enough to dispel them."
So following Naruto's advice he gave a quick chop to the head, that immediately dissolved it in smoke.
Two things happened at that moment. First, he felt as chakra came surging to his system, that refilled the most part of what he had lost. He was grinning at that bit of information when the second happened, as a sudden headache attacked him. And when he concentrated a bit more on it, he realized that there were new memories inside him, memories of that clone he had dispelled a moment earlier.
He shook his head, that was impossible right? If this was real then how had Naruto learned it, not only being a recently graduated genin but the worst of his year at that. He started thinking that maybe that headache had manipulated his most recent memories, after all it was all things he remembered just from a different angle. But that idea came crashing down as he remembered one particular memory.
"Hey Sasuke clone, don't you agree Sasuke is so bossy? I mean, he just gives orders left and right without a care. He is such a prick..." Naruto muttered to his ear, while the original Sasuke was out of earshot thinking about the next experiment.
"You do realize we're the same person right?" He asked, but sighed in disappointment at seeing the blond's puzzled expression.
Sasuke immediately went to scold Naruto. After that, he started to fantasize about the possibilities, and immediately ordered the pouting boy to make some clones.
-o-
A couple hours had passed, the sun was now beginning to settle as the sky turned gold and people went back home. Naruto and Sasuke were both laying in the soft grass of Training Ground 9, which was now a farcry of what it had been that same morning.
Before, a training ground that seemed to be a natural happening, something you would find in any forests, was now what appeared to be the remnants of the Fourth Shinobi World War. Trees had been obliterated left and right, some even incinerated after Naruto started his first attempts at making a fireball. Plenty of kunais and shurikens littered the ground and trees after both boys tried out different combinations with the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. The once clean and pristine lake was now muddied and having lost a decent chunk of water. Overall, what a training ground normally looked like after two shinobi trained together, but usually two chunin level shinobis except of a recently graduated genin and an Academy student.
"Ugh, I think I burned all my taste buds with that last attempt." Naruto groaned as he started to stand up.
"Maybe you shouldn't try to use a jutsu you had never performed correctly in a combat situation next time." Sasuke replied as he dusted himself off.
After he and Naruto finished those experiments, and concluded that the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu was more limited than they thought, he started teaching the blond the first steps of the Katon Goukakyuu no Jutsu.
That had been an arduous task, as Naruto wanted to forgo all theory behind it and jump right into making it. And even when he managed to calm the boy down and drill it into his mind, he decided to carelessly use it in their surroundings. And to top it all of, the blond decided to use the jutsu in one of their spars.
Sasuke sighed at the memory of their spars, he had no clue how that idiot would survive the first week with how straightforward he fought. Fortunately these spars may have taught him something, as in the last spar he had managed to take him by surprise and actually landed a hit for once.
Sasuke shook his head, there was a doubt that had been nagging him since they did those experiments.
"Hey Naruto, I have a question for you." He said as he approached the blond.
"Yeah?"
"How come you have so much chakra? It's not an amount that is just slightly more than mine, not even an amount that doubles mine. It's the kind one would expect from a Kage, not from a newly graduated genin. It's almost as if you had a bijuu inside you, but… that's impossible." Sasuke let out a laugh at the thought.
'After all, who would choose a random orphan to be a jinchuriki of the most dangerous of the bijuu.' Sasuke continued laughing at how ridiculous it sounded, but his laughter came to a stop when he noticed the serious expression of Naruto.
"Hey Naruto, what's wr-" Whatever was bothering him seemed to go away, as Naruto put on a malicious grin that couldn't mean anything good.
"Well little Sasuke, it all started eleven years ago, in the night of great despair and sorrow…"
And so Naruto started to tell his tale, making sure to fill it with different voices and showing some scenes with help of his clones and some Henges, as if it was a tale of a storybook.
All of this was to Sasuke's surprise. A conversation of this importance should be told in hushed voices instead of making a show out of it.
"...and that leads us to today…. So any questions?" Naruto excitedly asked as he dispelled his transformed clones.
Sasuke blinked at the sudden question, the shock of this revelation putting him in deep thought.
"Why did you tell me? I mean, we barely talk with each other, and when we do is when you want to insult me. So.. why me?" Sasuke asked, the curiosity carcoming him inside.
"I mean, there was no special reason for telling you, I just… wanted to choose something by myself." Sasuke noticed as the blond seemed deep in thought, his eyes were now empty of that intensity he always had, looking at nowhere. "Anyways, it also felt.. right. I mean, you decided to help me, even if I had to convince you to do it. And it's not like I have anyone else to tell…" Sasuke's eyes widened at that, did he really appreciate that much such a simple thing?
"Uh, it's okay if you don't want to hang out with me anymore after this, but please don't tell anyone about this. I mean almost the whole village already knows but…"
"Why wouldn't I hang out more with you? You may have the Kyuubi inside you, but you still are the same weak idiot."
"But the Kyuubi may break out and-"
"Look, if that happens there's nothing anyone can do about it now that the Fourth is gone. And if I hang out with you, I may be able to stop you of doing anything stupid that angers that demon enough to come out." Sasuke forced himself to smile to calm the blond. In truth the possibility of that situation happening scared him a bit, after all he doubted there was anyone that could stop the Kyuubi if it broke out.
"And why are we even talking about this. It's not like we're friends or anything." Sasuke said as he leaned on a tree.
"Do you wanna be?" Sasuke's eyes widened in surprise, as he turned to look at the boy to see if he was being sarcastic. But he came to the view of a fully serious Naruto.
"Sure." The words came out before he could think more thoroughly about the situation. But as he saw Naruto's grinning face he knew it was too late to take it back. With a sight, he accepted his fate as both boys said goodbye and each going their way.
'It can't be that bad right?' Sasuke asked himself, a question he knew he would retract in the near future.
'A friend huh?'
-o-
Naruto stared mindlessly at his seal, what was he doing wrong? He checked the book's copy to spot any difference, but came out empty.
He had spent the last hours trying to increase the intensity of the light as the book said, but he had no idea why. It definitely wasn't his chakra, because if he poured more into it then the seal ended up burning to a crisp.
It didn't help that his mind kept drifting to the events of the day, but he could barely fault himself. After all, he had made a friend today! Or at least that's what he thought, he would have to see tomorrow that Sasuke hadn't changed his mind about this. Well, no matter what he would come out of this with a super cool fire jutsu. He was already imagining all the cool things he would be able to do now, and how impressive it would be for the rest. He was damn sure that if the old man saw him, he would declare him Hokage on the spot.
Naruto shook his head. 'Focus! Uzumaki Naruto will not be stopped by this damn lantern!' And so he went back to work, creating new seals left and right.
He tried every idea his mind could scatter such as drawing it all at once or making them from different sizes. He had even made one with some fancy ink he found laying around.
To Naruto's surprise, all of the seals reacted differently. Some didn't respond at all, which were the ones he had scribbled in one go. Others held the same results as his first seal, giving the same dim light. And as he was going for his third batch, it happened. An intense light that were as marvelous as the one of his first seal, satisfying his core as the resplendent proof of his work reached his eyes.
'He did it! But-' Naruto paused his celebration. 'How? And why?' As he took a closer look, he realized that it was the seal written with the fancy ink. Naruto stared amused at it, he thought it had been his dumbest idea, but out of all of them it had been the one to work.
"That still doesn't explain anything, why did the ink matter of how well the seal worked? Why can't I just use the cheap ink from the Academy?" He asked out loud, as he glanced at the book for answers.
"A good trait… sealmaster…intuition… noticed… Oh, found it! 'You may have noticed in this experiment that the use of better quality ink improves the performance of your seal. Ink, acting as one of the three core essentials of sealing, in this case the medium, serves as the middle point of the exchange that happens between the chakra and the ideogram. If the quality of this middle point is not up to par, it will directly limit the potential that the seal has, in this case providing the ideogram with a fixed amount of chakra. This is why overloading the seal with chakra does not change the result…"
"What…?" Naruto stared at the pages for a few more seconds, but it didn't change anything. How was he supposed to know what he was doing wrong if the book was so confusing?!
"Alright Naruto, you got this. Just calm yourself down and try to grasp the main things from it." He breathed deeply for a moment, and then focused on the text before him.
"Ok so.. in sealing there's three main things that are ink, chakra, and …the weird symbols I've been drawing. And the ink acts like… my chakra control to my jutsus? So if my ink or chakra control sucks, I'm unable to do the jutsu or I will do it weaker… right?" Naruto asked ou tloud, he really wished Iruka-sensei was here so he could simplify this massive load of words.
"No, no, if I want to become Hokage, I need to be able to fix things on my own. No matter how many texts I have to simplify, I will get through this. But anyways, I really need to buy a dictionary if I want to pass through this pile of crap." Naruto grumbled the last part, as he went to write his own definition on a slip of paper and pasted it to the book.
"Well, I guess that's enough for today." And so he laid on his comfortable bed, and was asleep in mere moments.
-o-
"So, wanna go to Ichiraku's?" Naruto awkwardly asked the other boy. The day hadn't gone at all as he expected. He thought they would hit it off immediately and start talking about random stuff like favorite ramen toppings like good friends do, but he came to realize something, or better say remember something. Sasuke wasn't a talkative person. At all.
Sure, he could just talk about himself all the time and just leave it that their friendship worked like that, but it didn't feel right. After all, what was a friend but someone you can talk about everything with?
So he created his master plan, and the first step was to invite him to the best place of the world where he would be as comfortable as one could be.
Now that they had arrived at the holy land that was that ramen stand, it was time for step two. Ask him things until Sasuke answered and then continue the conversation from there.
"So whatcha ordering?" Naruto grinned out of the other boy's field of view, step two was starting.
"A bowl of miso ramen." Sasuke replied curtly, bothering Naruto. It seems he would have to try harder.
"Jealous that I will be graduating a whole year before you?" Naruto asked in the most irritating tone ever, to try to spark an argument. But Sasuke just decided to shake his head and left it at that.
Naruto asked some more casual questions that were responded shortly without derailing from the matter. Naruto's patience started to warn off so he decided to be more direct.
"Sasuke, is anything wrong? You've barely talked today, the day where we tray out his 'being friends' thing. Did something happen or did you just regret your decision about… this?" Naruto pointed to each of them, as the other boy slowly finished his ramen.
Without a word, Sasuke left his seat and jumped onto a building.
"You coming?" Naruto stared dumbfounded at the other boy for some moments before following him.
Both of them moved across the rooftops of Konoha, their silhouettes becoming one with the shadows as they approached an abandoned section of their village. Naruto felt a sense of dread, of old death coming from that place. Why was Sasuke taking him here of all places?
He didn't dare to ask, as the other boy opened the massive gate and both of them entered a massive compound. Naruto stared surprised at all the space, why weren't people living here?
They kept walking in silence until they arrived to a house that stood out, and as he glanced at Sasuke, it seemed he was quite familiarized with it.
"Naruto, do you know this place?"
Naruto thought for some moments the question, racking his brain trying to come up with an answer. But he shook his head, he had never been here before.
"I guessed so… these are my clan's compounds." Naruto's body turned stiff at the response. 'Of course it is… I'm so stupid.'
He didn't know the details, but he knew Sasuke had lost all his clan in one night and no less by his own brother.
"You know about what happened right? This is why I brought you here, to return the favour." Naruto snapped at the last part, since when had he done Sasuke a favor?
"You remember what you told me yesterday right? About the Kyuubi?" Naruto immediately nodded at the question.
"Yeah, but what does that have to do with this?"
"I know you told me for no special reason and all of that, but it must have still been something very personal for you. And friends are supposed to be able to say anything to each other right? So I… will tell you my ambition, and a warning along it…" Sasuke glanced at him as if asking permission to proceed, and was met with a simple nod.
"My ambition is to kill that man, the one that killed all my family, to kill my brother. And to gain power, he told me to fuel my anger, and to… kill my best friend to have the same eyes as him. Do you understand what I'm talking abou-" Naruto laughed, and laughed at his heart's content at that. A laugh that echoed across the entire compound. Sasuke stared at him as if he had become crazy.
Finally after some moments, Naruto calmed himself down. "Is that really what you're worried about? That I would fear you would kill me just to have some magic eyes? I'm gonna respond like you answered me yesterday, but if that's the case I'm the fittest to be your best friend. After all, I have a whole demon in my gut, I doubt even that brother of yours could even take a whisker from the Kyuubi." Naruto looked amused as Sasuke seemed irritated by the last comment.
"Sorry sorry, I'm sure the person you're dedicating your whole life to kill for will not just be a toy to the Kyuubi." Naruto grinned as Sasuke playfully punched him.
"So all good right?"
"All good."
-o-
Naruto nursed his head after that last kick, already feeling a bruising coming in.
"Come on Sasuke, won't you go easier on your best friend forever?" He taunted the boy, provoking a glare from him.
His week was almost over, but he was satisfied with what he accomplished. Now he sucked in a mediocre way overall in Sasuke's opinion, learned two seals and a cool fireball jutsu. Well, he sucked at the last two, but at least he could use them. Sometimes. But his top achievement was befriending Sasuke Uchiha.
After all, who wouldn't like a quiet boy that was fixated on training all the time to be able to kill his brother as their best friend? Well he sure did. Especially since he now had someone to pass over his plans as a Hokage that would actually give fair criticism. Constructive criticism Sasuke called it? He shrugged, it didn't really matter.
"Hey idiot, if you don't want to arrive late and make a horrible first impression for your unlucky team, you should go. Now." Naruto gulped nervously as he hastily shoved all his things in his backpack.
"See ya!" Naruto yelled at Sasuke, while running at full velocity to the Academy.
He weaved his way through the small crowd of civilians, almost crashing multiple times in the process. But it didn't matter to him, only one thought being in his mind. Teams!
Today he would be assigned his team, three people he would entrust his life onto. His face paled at the thought of what could happen if his team disliked him. Hard choices happened multiple times in the shinobi life, and he didn't want for the answer to be simple. He really needed to make a good impression.
Naruto's pace started to slow down when he came to the sight of the Academy. His feet clacked against the wooden floor as he travelled the corridors. He started to panick, realizing he had forgotten which classroom he was supposed to go to.
'Why did I have to throw that stupid piece of paper with the classroom number in it?!' He reprimanded himself, while he tried to think of a solution.
'What if I make dozens of clones and send them to all the classrooms? That way one of them would surely be in the right place!' Naruto grinned at his marvelous idea, already forming the hand seal for it.
Just as he was about to summon his clones, from the corner of his vision he recognized a somewhat familiar figure.
"Hey, Mochi!" Naruto yelled while the brown-haired boy came to a stop.
"Oh blondie! What are you doing here, shouldn't you be enjoying your free day? From what I know you didn't manage to pass. I pity you, now you will have to wait an extra year to explore the marvelous place that is the genin section of the library. But I suppose my current predicament leaves me now with less time to explore and read." Naruto stared at the other boy in amazement, he had never met someone that changed of topics so quickly. He sighed as Mochi continued in his long rampant, the words he spouted losing more and more meaning to him.
"Stop!" Naruto exclaimed with his loudest boy. His face turned to one of relief as the other boy stopped talking.
"First, I did graduate. And second, I need your help..." Naruto deviated contact as he said that last part.
-o-
Naruto chagrined while the teacher finished lecturing both boys. He had arrived way later than he expected, and he had not at all made a good first impression. He sighed in disappointment as he heard the oh so frequent laughter from other kids.
After everyone quieted down, the teacher started to say some motivational speech about how proud he was of the people they became, something which didn't include him at the least.
'They really should make something more general..' Naruto started to search around for someone that looked considerably younger to support his argument. But it was to his surprise when he realized he was possibly the only one graduating earlier.
'How rare it is for me to not be ordinary, huh?' He thought in a mocking tone, why couldn't things be different for a change?
"...Uzumaki Naruto," Naruto blinked as he concentrated back on what the teacher was saying. "Yamamoto Michiya, and Eguchi Hiroko under the leadership of Fujiwara Muchitsujo. Team 18 consists of…"
Naruto's eyes widened as he searched for his teammates, until he realized he didn't know anyone in here. He started to curse for his bad luck when a voice interrupted him.
"Hey blondie, it seems we're together!" Naruto froze for a moment, and continued to curse his luck. He just had to get the guy that always goes on long rampages about anything.
'Oh well, at least now I don't have to go around shouting my teammates names until they notice me.' He thought to himself, trying to see the silver lining on all of this.
After some moments, Naruto calmed down enough to follow Mochi who was currently searching for their teammate.
"Oh, there she is!" Mochi said as he pointed to a blue-haired girl that looked at them very intently. He then realized she was looking at him specifically, as if she knew he had it. Naruto was a bit intimidated by this, feeling as if he was being carefully studied. That kind of undivided attention was overwhelming, almost choking. Naruto shook his head, it felt more like drowning.
'Wait, drowning?' He gazed around him and realized his surroundings had changed. Now he found himself on what he guessed was the ocean. It didn't really matter, he couldn't hold his breath for much longer, and so he swam at what seemed to be the surface. ving
But no matter how much he swam, it felt like the distance kept being the same, as if he hadn't moved at all. He looked in desperation at the seemingly so close light that was the surface, trying to think of any way to get out of there.
But it was to no avail, his last strengths leahim as the corners of his vision started to darken, until it captured all of it and then all was kist black.
"Hey blondie, are you there?" Naruto blinked. He quickly looked at his surroundings and saw he was back at the normal classroom filled with chatting genin.
He spent some moments frozen, trying to figure out what had just happened. Then he remembered, and started to curse the fox while he thought of an excuse.
"Oh, sorry, I was just... remembering something." He said vaguely, and fortunately Mochi went onto another senseless rampage. But it wasn't him whom he was worried about, he thought as the feeling of being watched settled back in. He shook his head at this bad start and decided to try and fix it.
"Hi there, I'm Uzumaki Naruto! And your name was?" Naruto asked in his friendliest turn possible. But against all his expectations, the girl just nodded and went away to a group of girls he had now noticed had been watching them for a while. Naruto considered running after her and give her a piece of his mind, when once again the bubbling voice of Mochi interrupted him.
"Don't worry, it's extremely common for Hiro-san to avoid people that seem like troublemakers. For example she hasn't directed me the word since I had a discussion with the librarian about how many books they could lend me." Naruto's brow furrowed at the other boy's happy tone throughout the whole explanation.
"But… why?" He could understand avoiding people like him, but not to that extent. It seemed exaggerated in his opinion. At least if it was only because of making trouble, and not for the other reason...
"I don't know, she has been like that ever since I met her. Maybe it has something to do with maintaining her clan's honor as many other people do, but she has certainly taken it to an extreme. Oh well, at least she isn't as bad about it as the Hyuuga are. For example one day I met this boy who…" Naruto stopped paying attention after that, as he started wondering about the information he had been told.
'Are people from clans really that obsessed over their image, I mean Shikamaru was pretty relaxed about everything…' He shook his head, knowing it was a thing he would never understand.
'At least it seems she dislikes me because I may dirty her clan's reputation or whatever if she interacts with me.' Naruto sighed in relief at that, and started to get himself comfortable knowing he would have to wait till their sensei arrived.
So he spent the next minutes dreaming about all the cool missions he would be doing now, while Mochi excitedly went about his story of an arrogant Hyuga boy. After a while, a man that carried himself with certainty made himself present in the room.
Naruto immediately perked up to this, and even more when he noticed the tantō strapped to his back. His body started to get giddy with excitement at the thought of having a sensei that would teach him all the cool tricks and postures with a sword.
"Team 7, come with me!" The man exclaimed in a potent voice.
'Wait what was even my team number?" Naruto started to rack up his brain searching for an answer, but he deflated as three kids stood up and followed the man.
"Team 17, come with me." Said a dull voice. Naruto searched from where was the voice coming from, and realized it came from a man that looked like a fairly normal chunin, wearing the ordinary uniform accompanied by short brown hair. To him that man was the epitome of ordinary, and in this case boring.
Naruto pitied the poor souls that ended up with him, when he noted that Mochi was getting out of his seat.
"Why are you standing up? Our sensei hasn't arrived yet, right?" Naruto said as he looked around the classroom and only saw the man from before.
"Oh, we're team 17, and that man seems to be our sensei. You should pay better attention blondie." Mochi let out a laugh at Naruto's incredulous expression.
Naruto froze for a moment until he reached a conclusion that he should have realized way sooner.
'I have the worst luck in the world…'
-o-
"As you may know, my name is Fujiwara Muchitsujo, and I will be your jounin sensei. You may call me by my first name or last name, I don't really care. Now, I want each of you to tell me a quick overview of your abilities." Naruto was taken aback by how direct he was being about everything, after all, they would be spending the next years together as a team. Shouldn't he make them talk about their interests and that stuff so they would be closer together?
"Let's start with the confused kid over here." He said as he pointed at him. Naruto blinked rapidly in surprise and cleared his throat.
"Well, my name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I'm pretty mediocre according to Sasuke. The only things special that I have are my Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, a couple seals and the Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu." Naruto stumbled over some of his words, unsure if he had told the right things. Apparently it was good enough for the man as he gave a simple nod.
"Alright, you the brown-haired one, you're next."
"I'm Yamamoto Michiya, and I was slightly above average in my class. I'm proficient in shurikenjutsu, poison making and have a wide arsenal of low rank ninjutsu." Naruto was surprised at how summarized Mochi's description about his abilities was, expecting him to enter into excruciatingly painful detail.
Now that he noted, Mochi seemed to be way more concentrated than before, almost as if he had turned a professional mode on.
"Lastly the deadpan girl."
"Eguchi Hiroko from the Eguchi clan. Above average grades in taijutsu and ninjutsu. Small repertoire of Suiton jutsu." Hiroko said curtly, in a quiet voice that Naruto had to strain his ears to hear correctly.
Naruto saw as their sensei nodded to himself and then retrieved a scroll.
"Alright, passing on I will now tell you this clearly. You have to pass another test to graduate fully." Naruto's mouth turned agape at that bit of information. And as he looked at his teammates reactions it seemed he was the only one in shock by the news. His body started to shake slightly in nervousness of a test he had not prepared for.
'Please tell me it's not a written test, because if it is I will definitely fail.'
"If you fail this test, you will be sent back to the Academy to try again next year." Naruto started to shake even more at that.
"Now, this test will be about the retrieval of a chest that has important ninja documents and carry it to the nearest output. Of course it isn't as simple as taking the chest and leaving, because I will be guarding it and chase you until you arrive at the output. All the mission details are in that scrolls, so I will see you in an hour at Training Ground 17 to start the test." And saying that, he was gone in a puff of smoke, leaving behind only leaves.
Naruto's head started to hurt as he tried to process the whole situation. His headache wasn't helped by the boasting voice of Mochi that was telling them the test details.
'Why is being a shinobi so weird at times?' Naruto wondered to himself as a clearer vision of the shinobi life started to be painted in his mind.